Home University of Edinburgh Library Essentials
December 18, 2025
Shooting the breeze
It’s not every day that you are asked to conserve a magic spell on papyrus, but this is exactly what happened when I was asked to take a look an ancient fragment of text, recently discovered in the archive collections at the CRC.
The fragment was unearthed by an archives intern who was assessing the foreign language material in the David Laing collection. A vague catalogue entry labelling the box as miscellaneous languages, and an inscription on the folder wrongly identifying it as Chinese script, meant that this item had not been consulted for years and the staff were unaware of its existence. It has been suggested that it could be an Egyptian spell from the book of the dead, but further research is needed to confirm this.
Fragment of papyrus, before conservation
Steps towards equality in New College Library Class Photographs
A guest post by Chloe Elder, New College Library Special Collections Digitisation intern
From the depths of New College Library’s archives, a selection of class photographs from 1857 to 1930 has been digitised and uploaded to the Open Books website, accessible at openbooks.is.ed.ac.uk. The photographs show the students and staff of New College’s past, each of whom make up a part of the School’s long history. You may recognise, for example, Principal Robert Rainy, who lends his name to the College’s Rainy Hall, sat front and centre of every photo during his time as principal from 1874 to 1900. And behind Rainy and succeeding principals stand rows of students, ascending the same courtyard steps that today welcome over 400 undergraduate and postgraduate students to the School of Divinity.
New College Library Class Photo Winter Session, 1923-1924
E-Resource Trials now live
We have the following e-resources on trial. All e-resources on trial are listed on our trials webpage where trial feedback forms can also be completed.
Mango Languages
Mango Languages offer online interactive courses for learning over 70 languages. It consists of two types of resources: Mango Conversations teaches through native-speaker dialogue, cultural insights, and critical thinking exercises, while Mango Premiere teaches foreign languages 
through the dialogue and culture found in full-length international films. Proprietary technology includes interactive subtitles and colour coding which allow learners t easily understand meaning, word order, and grammatical structures. Applications for mobile devices are also available through Google Play and App Store.
Trial ends 31/10/2016
Art Source
Art Source covers a broad range of related subjects, from fine, decorative and commercial art, to various areas of architecture and architectural design. Providing over 600 full-text journals, more than 220 full-text books, and a collection of over 63,0000 images, it is designed for use by a diverse audience, including art scholars, artists, designers, students and general researchers.
Trial ends 31/10/2016
International Bibliography of Theatre and Dance with Full Text
International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text is the definitive research tool for the study of theatre and the performing arts. This database was initiated by the American Society for Theatre Research, and since 1984, the Theatre Research Data Center (TRDC) at Brooklyn College has published 14 volumes of the IBTD. These volumes comprise a fully 
indexed, cross-referenced and annotated databank of over 60,000 journal articles, books, book chapters and dissertation abstracts on all aspects of theatre and performance in 126 countries. International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text contains more than 490 full-text titles, including more than 170 full-text journals, and more than 360 full-text books & monographs.
Trial ends 31/10/2016
Film Television and Literature Index with full text
Film & Television Literature Index™ with Full Text is the definitive online tool for film and television research. Subject coverage includes film & television theory, preservation & restoration, screenwriting, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews. The database provides cover-to-cover indexing and abstracts for more than 380 publications (and selected coverage of 300), as well as full text for more than 120 journals, and 100 books. In addition, Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text includes Variety movie reviews from 1914 to the present and over 36,300 images from the MPTV Image Archive.
Trial ends 31/10/2016
Further info
The following e-resources have been on trial throughout 2016:
Annual Review of Vision Science
Annual Reviews has recently launched a new journal that reviews progress in the field of Vision Science. This journal will be an important resource for anyone wishing to understand vision in health and disease as it integrates a broad set of connected disciplines including psychology, neuroscience, computer science, cell biology and genetics, and clinical medicine. The Annual Review of Vision Science will cover topics and techniques including optics, the retina, central visual processing, visual perception, eye movements, visual development, vision models, computer vision, and the mechanisms of visual disease, dysfunction, and sight restoration.
Trial ends 30/11/2016
IBISWorld
IBISWorld is an online industry intelligence solution. Each of its industry reports provides the most detailed performance data and analysis on the market; supply chain information; forecasts; risk scores; operating strengths and weaknesses; analysis of external drivers; major player market strategies; and industry profit and costs benchmarks. Reports are updated 1-4 times per year depending on how fast moving the industry is ensuring the most up to date research possible. In addition to coursework/assignments, these reports would be of use to students researching industries for placements, future careers (including start up research) and interview preparation. A user guide can be downloaded here.
We are trialling access to this database during 2016 please continue to complete the trial feedback form if you would like the subscription to continue beyond 2016. Access in 2016 has been funded by the Careers Service, the Business School and the Library.
Statista.com
Statista is one of the world’s largest and most extensive statistics and market data platforms. With a team of over 120 statisticians, database experts, analysts and editors, Statista provides students, faculty and researchers with an innovative and intuitive tool for researching quantitative data and statistics from 18,000 sources and on 60,000 different topics giving access to more than 1.5 million statistics, forecasts, dossiers, reports and infographics in Arts and Humanities, Health and Life Sciences, Science, Engineering and Technology and Social Sciences. Updated daily.
We are trialling access to this database during 2016 please continue to complete the trial feedback form if you would like the subcription to continue beyond 2016.
e-Duke Books Scholarly Collection
Access to all 2200 titles in humanities and social sciences published by Duke University Press. Individual titles have been added to DiscoverEd – see the list at Duke University Press (3rd tab). 2016 published content will be purchased and all pre 2016 content is on trial throughout 2016. Decisions on further purchases will be made according to usage and trial feedback.
Trial ends 31/12/2016
Academic Video Online – more content added
AVON Screenshot
During the summer we took out a subscription to Academic Video Online following a successful trial earlier this year. A further 1,462 videos have been added across multiple subject areas. Content is regularly added to this database. See the full list of Academic Video Online content here. Columns can be filtered by collection, subject or to highlight the new content only. We will continue to add alerts about new content throughout the academic year.
Subject links
Art & Design – Art & Architecture, Fashion Studies
Diversity – Asian Studies, Black Studies, LGBT, Women’s Studies
Health Sciences – Counselling and Therapy, Health Policy, Medical Imaging, Nursing, Rehabilitation, Sports Science, Veterinary Science
History – World History, Women’s History, American History
Literature & Language – Drama, Film, Language, Literature
Music & Performing Arts – Classical Music, Dance, Film, Jazz, American Song, Popular Music, Theatre, World Music
Personal Interest – Cooking, How-to, Travel
Social Sciences – Anthropology, Business & Economics, Criminal Justice, Education, Environment, Food, Human Rights, Media Studies, Politics, Psychology, Religion, Social Theory
Further info
Access this database via the main AZ list list as well as several subject specific AZ lists. Content is in the process of being added to DiscoverEd.
Further info about this resource also appears on the SPS Librarian blog and the New College Librarian blog.
Reading your reading list and recognising references
Got your reading list but not sure what you’re being asked to read (is it a book, is it an article, is it a bird, is it a plane…)? Or are you just not sure how you’re meant to search for and find these items in the Library (in print or online)?
Being unsure about this is very common for new students so you’re not alone but if you can learn how to read your reading list and recognise references now it will make you more confident using the Library and will save you a lot of time and effort in your studies. And these skills will be of use to you at all stages of your University life and beyond.
What’s in a reading list?
Reading lists are just lists of essential, recommended or further readings for your course. They can include a wide range of material including books, book chapters, journal articles, documentaries, films, newspaper articles, websites, blogs, etc., but I am going to concentrate on the 3 most common:
- Book
- Book chapter
- Journal article
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature with Full Text now available
We have upgraded our RILM Abstracts of music literature subscription to include full text.
RILM abstracts of music literature with full text (RAFT) expands and enhances the unrivalled global bibliography of writings on music with the addition of a million pages of full-text content from more than 200 key periodicals, many of which are not available anywhere else online. In addition to metadata, abstracts, and indexing curated and written by RILM’s team of subject experts, RAFT offers search and browse for each full-text issue, cover to cover.
A spreadsheet of the current title list can be found here. New titles are expected each month rising to 240 by the end of the year.
Further info
Access this full text database via DiscoverEd, our Music AZ list or our main AZ list.
Find peace in the Library
Finding peace in the library might mean finding a bit of quiet study space to you. If that’s the case, have a look at our guide to quiet and silent study space.
However, September 21 is the U.N. International Day of Peace, which seemed like a good day to highlight the resources available in Edinburgh University Library for peace and conflict resolution. Read More
Scopus maintenance alert 21st Sept
On September 21st from 4pm – 6pm Scopus will undergo maintenance. During this period, the Scopus database will be available in read-only mode, which means that users will be able to perform most of the usual operations, but won’t be allowed to perform operations writing into the database such as:
– Saving/editing a search query
– Saving/editing an alert
– Creating or modifying a list
– Changing a user configuration
Feedback questions from library welcome sessions
It was great to meet so many SPS postgraduate students in our Welcome Week workshops on Library Resources. We’ve now put the slides from these sessions up on our subject guide web pages. We asked you to write any questions you still had about the library on your feedback sheets so we could get back to you. Here’s some of the things you asked :
1. “Are there any free software resources in the library? For example SPSS?”
Yes, the University provides access to SPSS – see http://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/computing/desktop-personal/software/main-software-deals/spss for more information. A range of other software resources are also available on University desktop machines, such as NVivo.
2. “You mentioned VPN – how and when do we use it for the library?”
VPN, or Virtual Private Network, is necessary for off campus access to a small number of library databases. In particular some newspaper databases, such as Factiva and Nexis UK, require VPN access for off-campus access. You can find information about the VPN service at <http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/vpn
3.“Is there any reference management system I can download to my computer for free?”
You can download Endnote Online for free. See http://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/help-consultancy/is-skills/catalogue/text-catalogue/endnote-web-intro. You may also be interested in Mendeley and Zotero.
4. “I would like to find out more about referencing systems such as Mendeley. Does the University support the desktop version?”
The desktop version of Mendeley is installed on lab PCs throughout the University, although the University doesn’t provide as full a support service for this package as it does for Endnote. If you’d like to find out more about using different bibliographic managers, you may find this comparison table useful.
5. “Is there a floor plan of the Main Library?”
Yes, there are plans for each floor – see the bottom of the page at http://edin.ac/2beNlFw
Christine Love-Rodgers & Caroline Stirling, Academic Support Librarians – Social & Political Science
CABI E-Books now available
We have purchased 325 e-books from CABI publishing. Titles have been picked from the following subject areas; Agriculture subject collection, Animal Production and Husbandry collection, Human Health and Nutrition collection and the Veterinary Medicine collection. A spreadsheet of the new titles can be found here.
These books are hosted on CABI’s own website and as well as reading online, the books can be downloaded for offline reading for 30 days. A userguide covering DRM restrictions, how to download to different devices etc is available here.
Further info
These books will appear in DiscoverEd soon until then, the CABI platform links can be found on the E-Book AZ list.
Collections
Hill and Adamson Collection: an insight into Edinburgh’s past
My name is Phoebe Kirkland, I am an MSc East Asian Studies student, and for...
Cataloguing the private papers of Archibald Hunter Campbell: A Journey Through Correspondence
My name is Pauline Vincent, I am a student in my last year of a...
Projects
Cataloguing the private papers of Archibald Hunter Campbell: A Journey Through Correspondence
My name is Pauline Vincent, I am a student in my last year of a...
Archival Provenance Research Project: Lishan’s Experience
Presentation My name is Lishan Zou, I am a fourth year History and Politics student....